Shailene Woodley had no clue who TV mom Molly Ringwald was on ‘Secret Life of the American Teenager’: ‘I don’t get it’

Andie Walsh who?

During a recent appearance on Vanity Fair’s “Scene Selection,” Shailene Woodley, 32, confessed that she didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was at the time that Ringwald played her TV mom. 

“I didn’t know who Molly Ringwald was,” the “Big Little Lies” actress said about the ‘80s teen movie icon. 

“I was 15, didn’t grow up with a TV. Like, every one of my parents’ friends were like, ‘You’re working with Molly Ringwald!’ And I was like, ‘What is her…. Why? I don’t get it.’ Because I had never seen ‘The Breakfast Club’ or ‘Sixteen Candles’ or any of her films.”

Woodley played Ringwald’s TV daughter on “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” which aired on ABC Family between 2008 and 2013 (ABC Family has since rebranded into Freeform). 

On the show, Ringwald, 56,  played Anne Juergens, the mother of Amy Juergens (Woodley), a teen girl who got pregnant after having sex at band camp with playboy Ricky Underwood (Darren Kagasoff). Amy soon got involved with Ben (Ken Baumann, the son of a sausage mogul). 

The show wasn’t Woodley’s first role, as she also appeared in shows such as “The O.C.,” but it was her first starring role in a show. 

Following “Secret Life,” Woodley went on to more prominent roles in the popular maudlin teen drama  “The Fault in Our Stars” and the “Hunger Games” knockoff series “Divergent.”

Ringwald continued giving hat-tips to her teen-icon days by playing a mom on another teen show, “Riverdale.” But, she declined to appear in “Brats,” the recent Hulu documentary about the Brat Pack.

Woodley said her ignorance about Ringwald turned out not to be so bad. 

“I got to know her as just this, like, beautiful older sister motherly figure to me, who was really protective of honoring, like, my authenticity as a young person and who I was and just being, like, a kiddo playing a kiddo,” Woodley said.

Woodley, who was previously engaged to NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, added about Ringwald, “She protected me in that way and I’m so thankful for that because there is a pressure for people to grow up very quickly, especially when it comes to Hollywood.”

Woodley “learned a lot” working on that show at a young age, including “the types of messages that I want to be putting into the world or maybe not putting into the world.”